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Family Sledding, 1956

Family and their dog prepare for their descent down the hill on a toboggan. View the original source document: WHI 7857

Here in Wisconsin, the recent brutal winter weather served as a reminder that most of us are fragile, indoor creatures, unlike our ancestors who dwelt mostly outdoors. If we have to go out when the wind chill is 35 below, most of us dash from one warm air bubble to the next as quickly as we can. Safely inside again, we unwind scarves, wipe fog from our glasses and, if we love history, wonder how the people who lived here before us coped with winter.

Although scientific data was not collected comprehensively until modern times, our predecessors left hundreds of stories about winter conditions. As more and more of their words are put on the Historical Society's website, we can get glimpses into the history of Wisconsin winters.

Fur Traders Recount the Brutalities of Winter

The earliest account of a Wisconsin winter was recorded by fur traders who wintered in 1659-60 near Lac Court Oreilles. When severe weather curtailed hunting, the entire community of exiled Hurons and Ottawas began to starve. "Those that have any life seeketh out for roots," one of them wrote later (slightly modernized here), "which could not be done without great difficulty, the earth being frozen 2 or 3 feet deep, and the snow 5 or 6 above it."

After hundreds of people had starved, more snow and cold followed, which crusted the deep drifts — unexpectedly proving to be their salvation:

The snow falls, the forest clears itself ... The weather continued so [cold] 3 dayes that we needed no racketts [snowshoes] more, for the snow hardened much. The small staggs [deer] are as if they were stakes in it, after they made 7 or 8 capers. It's an easy matter for us to take them and cutt their throats with our knives.

Ten years later, across the state near Green Bay, Father Claude Allouez spent the winter visiting various Indian tribes to see if they would welcome a missionary. Late in February 1670 he headed back from a Potawatomi village near the current site of University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, later recalling:

On the twenty-third, we set out to return thence; but the wind, which froze our faces, and the snow, compelled us to halt, after we had gone two leagues [five miles], and to pass the night on the lake. On the following day, the severity of the cold having diminished, although very little, we continued our journey with much suffering. On my part, I had my nose frozen, and I had a fainting fit that compelled me to sit down on the ice, where I should have remained, my companions having gone on ahead, if, by a divine providence, I had not found in my handkerchief a clove, which gave me strength enough to reach the settlement.

Ten years after that, associates of the famous French explorer LaSalle made a famous winter trek up the shore of Lake Michigan in 1680, during which the snow blinded them, low temperatures froze their extremities, and crusted snow lacerated their naked feet. Their story was assembled from widely scattered original sources in the March 1924 issue of our online Wisconsin Magazine of History.

Winter on the Frontier

The French explorers, missionary priests, and fur traders were succeeded in the early 19th century by permanent settlers who also left evidence about Wisconsin winters. In December 1836, for instance, the first surveyors of Madison:

found the snow very deep, and after a hard day's work wading in the snow, we camped at night between the Third Lake (Monona) and Dead Lake (Wingra), where we found some thick timber and a sheltered spot. With a good deal of difficulty we made a log heap fire and eat our snack, and after the fire had thawed the snow and warmed the ground, we removed the fire to a little distance and made our bed on the ashes where the fire had warmed the ground. The weather was extremely cold but we slept warm and the next morning ... the weather extremely cold we returned to Mineral Point to wait for milder weather.

When they returned in February 1837, things were hardly better:

We found that the snow still covered the ground and we stuck the [survey] stakes in the snow, the ground being too deeply frozen in most places to receive the stakes. We camped in the timber in the low grounds under the hill of the Fourth Lake (Mendota) and were compelled to abandon our work by a severe snow storm that so blinded us that it was with great difficulty we found our way across the Fourth Lake to the cabin of St. Cyr, where we stayed two days until the storm was over.

With time, frontier homesteaders constructed cabins and, eventually, frame or brick buildings that were heated with open hearths or wood stoves. They also began to keep records of the climate.

For example, the first systematic weather observations in Madison were made at the University of Wisconsin's North Hall in the early 1850s. Professors enlisted the help of students, including the now-famed naturalist and UW student, John Muir, to make notes.

More regular weather records began in 1869 when observers started recording formal readings of temperature and precipitation as well as written notes about things like clouds and ice. On days of especially notable weather, such as blizzards, the northern lights or destructive winds, the weather diaries included articles cut from the newspaper, which have been put online at Turning Points in Wisconsin History.

Learn More

To see more ghosts of winters past, simply enter the word "winter" (or "snow" or "frozen" and so forth) in the search boxes at the Wisconsin Magazine of History and Wisconsin Historical Collections. For more fun, try the same terms in the search box on the top of this page.